Out of the Box Challenge

It's time to show you my progress so far on my Guild Challenge piece, lest you think I should put my machine up for sale. There hasn't been much time for sewing lately but I did get this together this week. The challenge is for us to do something that's out of our normal comfort zone, to challenge
ourselves with a new technique or whatever... to stretch ourselves skill-wise. So I chose two "personal challenges". First was to do something with orange. I hate strongly dislike orange. All my quilting buddies know that I do not "do" orange. If we are doing a swap or exchange, or blocks for each other, they all know - no orange for Linda. So I figured it would be good
for me to force myself to do something tasetful with a color I find very DIStasteful. (I don't even eat oranges, but that's another story..) So I have pieced this base with many orange and black 

half square triangles. Like red, I discovered orange does not photograph that well. This photo is not a true representation of what I have (some here look a little too red)... so you'll just have to trust me on this one . There is a good variety of oranges- bright and dull oranges, yellowy oranges, rusty oranges, red-oranges, gold-oranges, coppery oranges.. okay, you get the picture- for a person who doesn't sew with orange, I found a darned good selection in my stash without having to buy any. (I did solicit a few from my friend Susan D - thanks darlin'). This square presently measures 24"- it will be a bit larger as there are two borders still to go on.
My second challenge is to add some appliqué. My first intention was to do some wool appliqué, but now I'm having second thoughts. I might try some hand appliqué with cottons instead. (I have never hand appliquéd, so don't be expecting great things!!) Still not 100% sure.. so you'll have to stay tuned to find out... What are you working on?

Peace,
Linda

If you do what you always did, you will get what you always got.